Kindle e-book lending service Lendle has its API access restored by Amazon

By Adam Rosenberg March 23, 2011

Lendle is now back, after having had Amazon revoke its API access yesterday. The online retailer apparently took issue with the e-book lending app’s Book Sync feature, which allowed users to sync their Kindle list with Lendle. The developer moved quickly to disable the feature and the service was restored shortly afterward.

Late last year, Amazon finally ceded to user requests that an e-book lending system be added to the company’s Kindle service. Soon after, an application called Lendle was released that put a social spin on the new feature.

Basically, users could sync their Kindle lists with Lendle, which keeps a running tally of the books you’ve completed reading and have available for lending; one of the stipulations of the new Amazon feature is that a book cannot be read by its owner and lent out at the same time. Lendle users could then use built-in browse and search functions to look at other users’ reading lists and send out borrow requests. The removal of the Book Sync feature means that Lendle will no longer be able to simply fetch each user’s list, but the application’s core functionality remains intact.

In a post on the Lendle website, co-founder Jeff Croft addressed the news in a blog post and then a subsequent update when API access was restored. He lays out the details of Amazon’s service cutoff and the measures that were taken to correct the issues. He also has a bit to say on the lessons learned from this incident and what the future of Lendle holds.

“We’ve learned a lot through this process, and have come to realize we need to work towards a Lendle product that does not rely on APIs provided by Amazon or any other third party. To that end, we’ve already begun brainstorming the next version of Lendle. Suffice it to say, we’ll continue to make good on our promise to keep Lendle the easiest, fastest, fairest, and best way to lend and borrow Kindle books.”

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…

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